Wednesday 17 March 2010 06.24 EDT
First published on Wednesday 17 March 2010 06.24 EDT

Twirling his comedy moustache and summoning every last drop of rockabilly-Borat charm, Gogol Bordello's Eugene Hutz broke into a toothsome grin. "Is my band popular in Eastern Europe?" he said during a recent interview. "Are you kidding, my friend? Are The Pogues popular in Ireland?".

We didn't have the heart to tell him but there was a crucial distinction. Hutz was born and reared in the former Soviet Bloc (in a rain-lashed hamlet south of Kiev). Whereas The Pogues, hailing largely from London, are the musical equivalent of the Republic of Ireland soccer team circa 1990, when half the starting 11 had English accents. Shane MacGowan (born in Tunbridge Wells, no less!) and chums may drape themselves in the tricolour, but their supposed "Irishness" is a mish-mash of hairy, outmoded cliches, many of which they seem actively interested in perpetuating.

For the rest of the year, Irish people can remain in blissful denial about the fake green shadow cast by the Pogues and kindred Plastic Paddies. Alas, each St Patrick's Day they are forced to remove the blinkers and face the horrible reality, as surely as if they had been strapped to a plank and dunked in a giant vat o' Guinness. Ireland has given the world Thin Lizzy, Fatima Mansions and My Bloody Valentine. And yet it's these whooping, fiddle abusing "Oirish" musicians who have come to be regarded the world over as true custodians of the Celtic soul. Notwithstanding the fact most of them started out schlepping around dive bars in Boston and Queens.

While claiming a deep spiritual connection to ... well, they'd probably call it the "Emerald Isle", their inauthenticity stinks. The obvious giveaway is the choice of band names: Black 47, Flogging Molly, Dropkick Murphys. You can tell exactly what stripe of Irishness these guys are trying to flog. Hint: it has sweet feck all to do with Oscar Wilde, Christy Ring or Samuel Beckett.

This might be funny if it didn't stifle proper Irish musicians attempting to forge an international career. When Bell X1 – a sort of Irish Radiohead minus the righteousness and self-loathing – toured the US, local media complained that they didn't seem "particularly Irish". Meaning, one presumes, they didn't end each show by setting a bodhrán alight and glassing one another. Imagine Coldplay fetching up in New York only to be upbraided for not sounding like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins.

In Britain, too, soft prejudices endure. Although the Mercury Music Prize styles itself as a UK and Ireland award, it's long been clear that, for Irish artists to make the short-list, they are required to cleave to the stereotype of the misty-eyed troubadour. Windswept and soft voiced, Gemma Hayes, Fionn Regan and Lisa Hannigan each dealt in the sort of Celtic whimsy that goes down well in Kilburn and Glasgow, but strikes many Irish people as quaint, if not a bit stagey. What if the Mercury judges took the time to explore the genuine diversity of modern Irish pop, in particular its burgeoning electronica scene? Now there's a St Patrick's Day toast we can all raise a glass to.